Fine Art

STATEMENT
As painter my goal is simply to represent on canvas how I see the world. I'm fascinated with the shapes and rhythms of nature. I conceive of my paintings as a collection of interesting shapes that fit together, and with a little luck the end result can convey something of the sublime. I've worked directly from my subjects or “plein air” for 16 years, and strive for the work to express an empathy for the unique qualities of a landscape as simply as possible.

BIOGRAPHY
Richard Abraham was born and raised surrounded by the beauty of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. In 1998 he made the decision to leave a 14 year career as a designer and animator, and moved to Minneapolis to train in traditional oil painting techniques. He immersed himself in study: drawing and painting from the figure 5 days a week. He refined his craft while attending The Altelier, the Bougie Studio and H&P Studios.
During this time he painted landscapes on location or “plein air” for the first time and discovered a passion for the subtlety of nature. The challenge of working outdoors consumed him, and he hasn’t looked back. Seeking a connection and empathy to the places that he depicts, he scouts rural hide-a-ways to paint in Northern Minnesota, Wisconsin and Upper Michigan.

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Richard has participated in plein air events around the country including the Laguna Beach Invitational and at the Telluride Colorado Event, in 2009 was Awarded the Hiawatha Artist in Residence by the National Forest Service. His art has presented opportunities to travel the world, painting in Italy, Mexico, and Prince Edward Island to name a few. Richard is past president of The Outdoor Painters of Minnesota, exhibits his work extensively and is represented in numerous private collections.
Affiliations
The Oil Painters of America
Outdoor Painters of Minnesota
St. Paul Art Collective
NorthEast Minneapolis Art Association

 

STATEMENT
The longer the viewer takes to concentrate and “study” any form of fine art the greater the possibility they have to enjoy it, or decide why they don’t. The average viewing time is fifteen seconds. I am challenging that notion to allow submission to the emotional experience.

My work is an accomplished effort of juggling composition and improvisation. The construction of these two elements take shape in a semi-trance. After this absorption, three-quarters of the way through this process, the critical phase occurs when I must make the whole piece come together. Of course it’s not a “process” in the corporate sense of the word – it is everything that has stayed with me from being a student with Elaine de Kooning to thirty years of working and exhibiting in NYC.

I must use whatever facility comes to play during this circumspect analyses in an attempt to finish with a positive ending. This final personal satisfaction is achieved with a certain amount of luck along with my  years of experience towards completion.

My approach to the current work relies on critical analysis and a reservoir of acquired techniques and subject matter. The new element to my work shown here is collage. A palette of appropriated images from vintage periodicals and posters. I use the cut line of the X-acto blade much like a pencil or paintbrush. Choosing the collage pieces, placing them, shaping; gluing and burnishing. This process is very intuitive while simultaneously reflecting on the compositional direction allowing for changes. I paint over the cut pieces with a variety of techniques.  The stipple dry brush application of paint is based on a technique I have used previously in my work to suggest the painterly approach.

The titles are conceptually cryptic leaving the final response and analysis up to the viewer. “Competition for the largest” and  “Butterfly” are examples of my earlier stylistic approach. They are graphic, with high contrast. “Christian Harley Riders in favor of Gay and Lesbian Marriage” might be transitional – busy but  composed.

What I am striving for in “Surf City is the Place to be”  is a combination of seamless blending of the figurative and abstract.  “Rolanda and the Kitchen Sink in Hawaii” is dedicated to a good friend who  immigrated to Hawaii. It  expresses a more painterly tone with a sense of color, bright light and the  thrill of being in a new place. “Butterfly” is an expression of life  on  over load with a geometric abstraction, and   kinetic movement. Delicate creatures that can travel  hundreds of miles every year to be where  they need to be, and return every year to another place called home.

BIOGRAPHY
Rande Barke remembers the sweet acrid smell of beer “factories” when riding in his father's truck toward downtown Milwaukee in the 1960’s. A prosaic industry set in a humble and sturdy landscape next to lake Michigan. 

Barke, who spent the last 20 years in New York City, exhibiting his art, is now back in Milwaukee. The culture and urbanity of “The City” provided a context that fostered five single person shows and several reviews in  Art Forum and Art in America, as well as awards including The National Endowment for the Arts Scholarship and the New York Foundations for the Arts Fellowship in drawing.
Before working full time as an artist in New York, Rande taught art for 6 years.  First at the University of Southern Mississippi, then as an assistant professor in the Art department of Syracuse University.  His formal education was at the University of Georgia with an MFA in drawing and painting.  There, he worked for two years with Elaine de Kooning who enabled him to meet such masters of 1950’s American abstraction as Willem de Kooning and Philip  Guston.  Willem de Kooning reminded Rande of his German speaking grandfather, Sam Barke, who left Europe to start a cedar post business in Gillett, Wisconsin in the 1930’s.
Rande left New York City in 2002, changed forever, after watching the Trade Center towers burn from his  Greenpoint Brooklyn studio. He and wife moved to Westchester County setting up a studio in downtown Yonkers, 2 blocks from the Hudson River and the Palisades.  The river and surrounding imagery was reflected in his abstract paintings and semi representational drawings.The great recession would take Rande and his wife  to the midwest. Rande now lives and works in Milwaukee - the city he left at age 16.

STATEMENT
I have found that while doing a painting outdoors I am immersed in the moment. What I mean is that later when I look at the painting I can remember all the things that went on as I painted, the weather, the birds singing, a small animal moving through the scene, people who have stopped to talk to me. The memories are all part of the painting.

BIOGRAPHY
Thomas Buchs attended Layton School of Art and became an Illustrator, creating artwork for many national and local companies over a 42 year career. During summers he exhibited at Art Fairs, and also did Pastel Portraits.  
Recently he has concentrated on Plein Air Painting (painting from life outdoors). Much of his current work is representative of this discipline. He tries to capture the light and atmosphere of a scene within a few hours. he believes that a painting is not just a two dimensional illusion, but also that of a moment in life, captured by an artist on canvas. 
Thomas is a founding member of Wisconsin Plein Air Painters Association. The WIPAPA has been established as a state wide fellowship of artists dedicated to promoting and practicing the traditional discipline of Plein Air painting. Members seek to honestly interpret the natural and man-made beauty and diversity of Wisconsin's landscapes and culture. They strive to enhance member's skills and reputations by providing regular opportunities to paint outdoors together, and to critique each other's work  and share their expertise with fellow artists, in order to maintain the highest standards of the Plein Air painting tradition.

STATEMENT
I grew up in a house of optical phenomena. My father was a physicist with a specialty in optics (although neighbors claimed he worked at the Optical Department at Sears). Lasers, lenses, prisms, and holographs were plentiful; as were lessons on the natural world. In our house, a solar eclipse became a graduate level seminar. On long car trips, we passed the time with questions to stump Dad: Why was the sky orange, what caused hail, and how were tunnels built under the bay? (Incidentally, we refer to these questions now as "Tunnel Talk" questions).

BIOGRAPHY
I begin my paintings with questions like those of "Tunnel Talk" times. What is the color of amber, iron-ore, pollen? How can wind and water be suggested? The paintings gradually grow in layers. In the strata of paint, the shape of a microscopic protein hovers beneath a planet's elliptical orbit and decorative ironwork cancels out dense foliage. It is these strange alliances between the common and uncommon, natural and synthetic that I find compelling to paint. The compressions, connections, and contradictions of the layers shape the personality of the painting.
This knotted, painted combination forces a continual shift of attention among the many levels. I compare this to a single moment in landscape and the competing levels of activity. When I stand on Devonian limestone on the levee of the Mississippi, the barges and riverboats pass, herons fly, behind, a train noisily rumbles and streetlights flicker on, the smell of diesel fuel drifts in while rain clouds build. It's the density of experience that continues to raise questions and excite me as a painter.

Education
INDIANA UNIVERSITY, Bloomington, IN., M.F.A. - Painting, 1988
TYLER SCHOOL OF ART, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA., B.F.A, Painting,1984 
Professional Experience
ST. AMBROSE UNIVERSITY, Davenport, Iowa, Professor, 1989-present UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, El Paso, Texas, Visiting Professor, 1988-1989